


A Redeeming Revelation

by ReconstructWriter



Series: Revelations [1]
Category: The Order of the Stick
Genre: GDGU, Maybe SoD, Redcloak Can't Handle The Hardcore Introspection, Spoilers, Who Aren't Getting Paid Enough For This Shit, Xykon Is His Own Warning, but not graphic, warning for torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24396217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReconstructWriter/pseuds/ReconstructWriter
Summary: Redcloak casts a newly-discovered scrying spell in a desperate effort to unearth O-Chul's secrets, but what he learns threatens every belief he's clung to since the Sapphire Guard massacred his village. Slight AU as of strip 550.
Series: Revelations [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857955
Comments: 10
Kudos: 8





	A Redeeming Revelation

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks to EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne and the wonderful Highgate (particularly chapter 21) for sparking this story. Also, thank you to everyone who's posted OotS stories and kept the fandom alive! You guys are the reason I'm posting this!

Redcloak searched thousands of Sapphire Guard reports for a hint of Girard’s gate, when he first heard of the soldier O-Chul. The account of his actions was so horribly written Redcloak spent half the day deciphering what he thought was code. No, just cockatrice scratch handwriting. At least this narrative—unbelievable as it was—did not go into gruesome detail of the merciless slaughter of his people. Instead, the report spoke of a soldier who stopped the Sapphire Guard from slaughtering a hobgoblin settlement.

“Ridiculous.” Redcloak crumpled the paper and tossed it aside. As if a human could put aside their unceasing hatred of his kind to think for a moment, let alone prevent an entire war. And not a word about any gates. He glanced at the right side of his desk where a stack of Sapphire Guard reports sat, unread. No doubt the pages painted a gore-soaked carnage that would have turned Xykon’s stomach, if the lich still possessed one. He could almost see the blood dripping from those pages, as if their ink had been distilled from all their countless victims.

A soft chime filled the office, signaling the turn of the hour. Two o’clock. Good. The misery of all those grotesque reports had sunk into him, weighing him down. Redcloak left the office, heading to the new throne room where Xykon should have worn down the paladin by now.

Time to spread the misery.

Being a leader meant keeping things running smoothly. Keeping things running smoothly too often meant handling otherwise pointless disputes and pittances. “You were assigned to dig. A simple task, but perhaps too difficult if your progress reports are any indication.” Redcloak tucked the latest report back into a file and set it aside, glaring at the hobgoblin before him. 

Ting-something hunched down, ears flattened. “I just…I haven’t done much digging. I’m out of practice!”

“What have you been doing?”

“Food acquisition,” he brightened, “Ever since that mess with those blue humans. Not this,” he indicated the city with a wave of his claw, “But before, years ago. I’ve gotten really good. I was head of both hunters and gatherers.” He straightened with pride, but that wasn’t what captured Redcloak’s attention.

“What mess?”

Much to his disbelief, he heard a rendition of the earlier report, albeit a more complete and accurate version. Tingtox still vividly remembered the most exciting single day of his life and explained his capture, his alliance with a hunting party tracking down the Sapphire Guard and the final confrontation. “—and then the soldier war-chief, O-Ch…O-Chul, that was his name. Yeah, he challenged the Sapphire Guard war-chief to a duel.”

“Over goblins,” Redcloak said flatly. “Really.”

“Yeah,” Tingtox said softly. “Really. And he almost died too. The war chief was furious when his warriors turned their backs on him. Swung his sword like, Kyash!” Tingtox gestured to his own face.

“Hmph, fascinating history of genocidal paladins aside, you can’t dig and a large city is the last place where hunting and gathering skills are feasible. All actual hunters and gatherers have been re-located to more useful positions.”

“Oh. Um…I could help with adm-admin…ordering people around. I’ve gotten good at leading.”

“Somehow I doubt that.” Redcloak stood, “However, if you lack the strength to dig, human resources could always use more management. The turnover rate is atrocious.”

“Oh sure, that sounds better than digging.”

“Report to the head of security. Donrakh.”

“That jerk?” At a scowl from Redcloak, Tingtox slumped. “Yes, Supreme Leader.” 

After transferring Tingtok to oversee human slaves, Redcloak headed back to the castle. If his calculations were correct, it was just about time to interrupt, lest Xykon’s distraction die and the lich decided to drag him away from consolidating power in Azure City. To his surprise, the paladin was still on his feet and struggling. Redcloak mentally upped the man’s toughness (must have taken a level) and decided that diplomatic letter to Cliffport could be sent off today.

By the time that errand was finished, so was the paladin and needed a heal spell just to get to his feet. Redcloak made the human pay for wasting such a powerful spell, but true to form the paladin insisted he knew nothing about the other gates’ defenses. Not that knowledge skills were paladin class skills anyway. Redcloak calculated how many more hit points the paladin gained and headed to a long overdue meeting with Jirix. Behind, he heard the clang of a body hitting cage bars.

“—bout today Mr. Stiffly.”

“Yes, today gave me a new one and I told you, my name is O-Chul—” The door swung shut.

Redcloak picked up the pace. So did his heart. O-Chul. The same from Tingtox’s narrative. And the report. No, the name was a coincidence. A cruel joke on behalf of a crueler world that a Paladin of the Sapphire Guard could have the same name as a fighter who…didn’t blindly hate all goblins. Yet his agile mind pieced connections together. The prisoner’s oldest scar. The sword strike from Tingtox’s description. The dates on the reports, which, now that he was thinking about it, did match an abrupt absence of Sapphire Guard attacks several years ago.

No! It must be a coincidence. The murderous paladins had merely grown more adept at hiding their rampages. Leaving no survivors. That was all. Besides, the sort of human who would risk his life for his people would never have joined the Sapphire Guard. Like as not the soldier O-Chul had died at the hands of those zealots. It didn’t matter. Redcloak had a meeting to concentrate on.

Yet his initial conclusion was just compelling enough to leave a gnawing thread of doubt. It came up at unexpected times during the meeting, agitated him afterwards at dinner and prodded him restlessly as he tossed and turned in search of sleep.

“Enough of this,” Redcloak threw off the covers and headed toward his private laboratory. He’d come across a new type of divination spell, the accounts of which were scattered with uncharacteristic messiness across his desk. Many of the accounts were dire warnings of things going wrong—or worse, right—so he hadn’t cast it. Yet the spell would allow the caster to see any past event, unmarred by memory suppression or lies, as if they had lived that event.

Because, in a sense, they would live it. Redcloak had puzzled through the spell’s inner workings by its incantation and instructions. Through the dream-state, the spell would allow him to scry to a point in a single person’s past, to view…no, in a sense, to live that snippet in time, from the point of view of that person. Not even the best memory spells should be able to block it, because Redcloak would not be viewing the imperfection of a memory, but the actual past event as it happened.

Carefully, he read through every notation, every page, every citation before putting them all neatly into a newly-labeled folder. Lighting his Alter to the Dark One, Redcloak prepared the spell. At last, he would gain the knowledge of the gates he’d long sought from the paladin. He would test this valuable new spell. 

He would squash that infernal niggling little worm of doubt once and for all.

Setting up the reagents was the work of simplicity itself. Between Xykon and himself, there was more paladin blood splattered in the torture chamber, the throne room or his cage than there was inside him. Everything else could be found in his laboratory. Before climbing back into bed he carefully moved some of the furniture away and a mirror into the bedroom, as disorientation and identity confusion were the most commonly reported side effects.

Redcloak snapped awake, the resolute certainty of his newfound duty weighing on his heart. The bone-deep ache on the side of his face. He looked in the mirror, but there was no scar. No cold steel had sliced through his face into the bone (oh thank the gods he’s not hitting anyone else). He was no human about to be initiated into the Sapphire Guard, to the zealous idiots’ profound disgust. Though, if the inclusion of a human commoner was enough to turn the cloaks of nearly a dozen Sapphire Guard members, how many would have left if Redcloak himself had been initiated? That would have been one way to destroy the Sapphire Guard.

(—my plea is that you disband the Sapphire Guard.)

He tried to banish the thought, and the last few days of O-Chul’s life which the divination spell had forced him to live. The images, the words, the feelings, they wouldn’t stop haunting him.

(“We’ll fight alongside the goblins.”)

(“I do not give a damn about the ethical ramifications of revenge. I just want to save lives!”)

(“If you need to hurt someone, hurt me.”)

“No. He attacked those hobgoblins.” The excuse fell flat when he could remember, as though he lived it (and through the spell, he had), O-Chul’s attempts to pacify the raiders, how he ordered his people into a defensive position, how reluctant he had been to strike even the second blow, let alone the first.

(“We are defenders.”)

A search of the room provided few distractions. It was the work of a moment to put everything back where it belonged. No urgent, hours-long task to distract him. At this point he would welcome a Xykon fuck-up. Anything besides O-Chul’s pleas against vengeful attackers. Risking his life for a chance of reconciliation to spare lives. All lives. 

He reached for the old vengeance, slow burning like churning magma beneath the earth. The feeling in his heart when he’d ordered the first catapults fired on Azure City. He tried to direct it toward O-Chul, but his hot anger hardened to stone against the cool certainty that O-Chul had been willing to die. He had felt that emotion, during his dream, a snippet of O-Chul’s life. The certain acknowledgement that he could die, so easily, and that it was a price he would gladly pay. Redcloak had never felt such a thing in his life and he barged out of his room and down the stairs rather than confront it. Yet he could not flee from the memories now embedded in him by the spell. Where was a mindflayer when he needed one? Something to erase this: O-Chul was willing to die for goblin lives, because he cared—

(morethanYOU—)

No! That was not…that couldn’t be… “Why you accursed gods?” Redcloak snarled in the emptiness of the hallways. Why had they seen fit to deliver into his hands the one paladin who least deserved…he staggered to a stop, one shaking hand clutching the doorway to the main room. His wanderings had led him straight to that paladin.

Dawn was hours away. The night’s chill bit harshly into his clammy skin. The monster was deep asleep, snoring loudly enough to cover Redcloak’s rant. The guards, somehow, also slumbering despite the monstrous snores. Redcloak would normally snap them awake to punish them, but his attention was drawn to the pal—to the prisoner.

Sleep eluded the prisoner too. Redcloak watched the caged figure carefully shift around the hard, stone floor, searching for the position which elicited the least discomfort. Dried blood was crusted all over scar-mottled skin and oozed afresh from deep gashes. One arm was limp and carefully positioned to heal. O-Chul hadn’t the luxury of cloth to properly bind it. He tried to curl up and preserve the body heat concrete and the long dark hours slowly leached from him. A futile effort. He hadn’t even the comfort of a blanket. The sparseness of the cage had been a means of torture for the paladin. Now it only seemed needlessly cruel. Any denial he could conjure was banished beneath the weight of newfound knowledge. Whenever he closed his eyes, all he could see was the katana, so slow, yet so smoothly heading for his (O-Chul’s) face. Enduring the Sapphire Guard’s disgust at adding a commoner who cared about goblins—

More than he, Redcloak, their Messiah chosen by the Dark One. That was the worst of all.

Redcloak tried to envision the horror in white and blue upon a massive warhorse—the monster from his youth—but the image popped like a balloon and he saw only a man, head pillowed in one arm, the broken one stretched out behind him. The old scar on his face shone in the moonlight, where he’d walked to death to make things right. It was joined by new scars now. New scars raked his skin everywhere. Mostly Xykon’s fault, but Redcloak grimaced when he saw the straight, precise lines around human pressure points. All the places where it hurt the most. He had heaped torture on O-Chul. Torture for the sake of vengeance, on the paladin who least deserved it.

Bile bubbled in his throat. He swallowed it down, suddenly unable to bear looking at O-Chul. At the scar on his face, which just missed his right eye.

When he dared look up again, O-Chul was fully awake and propped up by his good arm, unnervingly steady stare on Redcloak. The goblin priest froze, steps closer than he had been, hand outstretched. By the Dark One, why had he…? What was he doing?

Neither moved. Redcloak’s hand hovered in mid-air. O-Chul didn’t get up. Not even to his knees. Laying in the cage like a wounded hunting cat. Neither spoke. Redcloak didn’t know what to say, or rather, he did and dreaded those words most of all. If he stayed silent, O-Chul might speak, some insult or admonition or anything and things could go back as they were before. He just needed one wrong word from the paladin’s mouth to cement his ruptured beliefs, but the only sounds were the gentle snores of the guards and less gentle snorks of the Monster in the Dark. What was the prisoner waiting for? To see what he would do?

Redcloak’s outstretched arm was just close enough the prisoner might, if quick enough and powerful enough, be able to lunge and yank him into the cage bars. But far enough away that Redcloak, if quick and dexterous enough, might be able to dodge the grapple. Riskily close, but safely far enough away.

Without knowing what possessed him, Redcloak took an awkward, cautious shuffle forward. The claws of his awkwardly outstretched hand barely brushed the bars. His heart hammered wildly. This was foolishly close. All the prisoner had to do was reach out. Both he and Xykon’s phylactery would be in reach. Redcloak’s reflexes probably weren’t good enough. O-Chul just had to pounce. Any moment now, the strike would come. 

Yet O-Chul still did not move. Not a flinch. His muscles did not tense with held action. Somehow this lured Redcloak into another awkward shuffle closer. This time, he stuck his trembling hand between the bars. Into the realm of his prisoner.

If the last step was foolish, this one was madness. A thousand thoughts and fears swirled through Redcloak’s mind, all berating his suddenly dumped wisdom and intelligence stats. He could hardly believe his own actions. Any moment now, the grab would come and he would not have the dexterity or strength to escape. He would be trapped. O-Chul might well strangle him with Xykon’s own phylactery. Any second now. He saw so clearly that scarred face, set in serene lines. A paladin’s lack of fear. He would not quibble over consequences. So many scars littered that face, crisscrossing over the original from countless hours of torture. Even a decent person would want their revenge after all these months. Anyone would. O-Chul would take it. Any second now.

The attack never came. Disbelieving—of his own foolishness and O-Chul’s lack of reaction both—Redcloak took one final step. Surely, though O-Chul had allowed the last two moments of madness, he would not allow this. No one would. It would be even more foolish than the move Redcloak was making, to allow a torturer to freely touch the tortured. With scalpels and spells, over months of work, Redcloak had embedded in this man a hatred for his touch. If not for a paladin’s aura of courage, he would fear it as well. Even the meekest person would rather rip Redcloak’s hand off than allow him to touch…

But Redcloak was able to lay a hand on one brawny shoulder. The skin rough with scars. The mammalian warmth shocking against the early morning chill and his own cold skin. His hand trembled. What could be the more perfect moment? Redcloak sat on his knees right in front of the cage, his whole arm between the bars and now had a whole hand touching the paladin. Surely, now was the perfect time to strike. In a fit of madness, the torturer had made himself helpless to the tortured. This was his prisoner’s chance.

O-Chul stayed so still, so silent, he might have fallen asleep with his eyes open. A more believable notion than letting his torturer touch him freely. Yet this insanity wasn’t enough. Another act of madness gripped him. A test. How far would his prisoner let him go? He reached for his holy symbol. Surely, even if O-Chul had allowed everything else, allowed touch, he would not allow this. Redcloak cradled his holy symbol in his other hand and brought it to that steady stare. Showing, wordlessly, his intentions. Surely, the prisoner could not allow this.

Redcloak closed his hand around the holy symbol of the Dark One.

Surely someone, something would stop him.

Magic gathered, blood-red and threatening, around the holy symbol and around the hand still flat against O-Chul’s shoulder.

Surely, this was the last straw?

But O-Chul still did not move. He was allowing this? He couldn’t. Allow his torturer to cast a spell on him? Suddenly Redcloak had to know, had to say something. “Is this alright?” he blurted. Like an idiot.

At last, O-Chul moved, but not to grab the vulnerable hand upon his shoulder and slam Redcloak into the bars. Not even to jerk away from unwanted touch. Instead, all O-Chul did was nod, never breaking their stare or his silence.

That trust! To the man who least deserved it! It was almost enough to break Redcloak’s concentration. For the spell to fizzle into nothingness. But his will was powerful. He focused. He spoke the incantation.

“Heal.”

Blood red magic blended with dark dried blood, sealing the wounds and replenishing what was lost. With a crackle and a pop, O-Chul’s broken arm snapped back into place and mended. He drew it toward and under him with deliberate slowness. His gruff voice came out low and soft. “Thank you.” As though Redcloak had not put those injuries on him earlier…yesterday.

Redcloak realized he was still touching the paladin and jerked back. His arm hit the bar with a clang and he fell awkwardly on his ass. The sound reverberated too loudly in the still room. They both froze. The monster’s snores continue unabated.

The guards woke up. “Wha…?” And froze too. “Supreme leader?”

Redcloak has no idea how to explain this fit of madness. Ye gods he was stupid. Healing the paladin in the middle of the night. What was he thinking? What could he say? Any semblance of truth would be an outright betrayal of everything the budding Gobbletopia stood for.

“How dare you!” The guards charged before he could find some excuse. Two laid into O-Chul with a will while the third helped him to his feet, “Supreme leader, we were just…um…are you okay?”

Of course, they thought O-Chul had been trying to escape, like any sane person would have if their captor had put themselves in such a stupid position. And they had slept through most of it. He had nothing to worry about. 

“Mr. Stiffy,” The monster woke. “Are we playing tag? I wanna play! I wanna play!”

O-Chul did his best to dodge the blows and grab the weapons, but the guards had months to best learn how to fight a prisoner. There was no escape. Within a few moments, the guards had undone the effects of Redcloak’s spell.

Well, that handily concealed his traitorous generosity. Redcloak straightened his shoulders and turned to the guards, finally having the right words—

“Hey, what’s this? Paladin playtime and nobody invited me?” Xykon stormed into the room. “Reddy, Reddy, Reddy, bitching and complaining whenever I have my fun but here you are…what are you doing here?”

All eyes were on him. His guards pale and wide-eyed, O-Chul calmer but intense, recognizing the significance of this moment. Who would Redcloak throw to the lich? The goblins? The paladin?

(yourself?)

All his insides turned to liquid and trembled, though none of it showed on his face or voice. None of it could. Not to Xykon. Not if he wanted the plan to succeed. “Just an escape attempt sir. The guards needed healing.”

“Oh really,” the lich turned onto the paladin. “Good. Time to show off Xykon’s latest arts and crafts project!”

Everyone was experienced with the lich’s moods. Guards scattered. Redcloak finally found his much-needed urgent business. Even the Monster in the Dark shuffled his box away. Screams echoed in the former throne room.

“Mr. Stiffly, Mr. Stiffly,” the monster asked hesitantly, “Why are you thrashing like that?”

Redcloak gratefully let the door slam behind him, his insides still liquid, though the moment had passed. The decision had been made. The lich’s attention was diverted away from innocent goblins.

To O-Chul. But wasn’t that what the paladin wanted? To take pain so others didn’t have to? Redcloak had done the right thing.

(could’ve sacrificed yourself)

The guilt stayed.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Yet another Redcloak redemption via O-Chul because I'm obsessed with those two! And Redcloak's redemption. Which, IMHO, requires Redcloak to confront that evil was his CHOICE, not life forcing him down the road to hell. O-Chul's character and backstory, I think, are one great way of banging that much needed lesson through Redcloak's stubborn skull. Especially if he's experiencing the whole thing exactly as O-Chul did, thoughts and feelings included.
> 
> I've got two more stories (well, ideas for stories) that follow the same AU. Just have to finish them and publish them.


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